Russia Questions OSCE Statement on S.Ossetia

Speaking at the OSCE Permanent Council on March 23 Russian Ambassador to the OSCE Aleksey Borodavkin said that Tbilisi deliberately fuels up tensions around breakaway South Ossetia.

“Moreover, mutual mistrust and absence of political will to settle the conflict essentially hampers the peace process,” Borodavkin said in response to the report delivered to the Permanent Council by OSCE Head of Mission in Georgia, Ambassador Roy Reeve, who briefed the OSCE member states about the current developments in the South Ossetian conflict zone.

“Positive assessment of unilateral measures announced recently by the Georgian side cause serious doubts as well… We mean the reduction of terms of rotation of the Georgian peacekeeping battalion and the Georgian Defense Ministry’s intention to deploy those servicemen in the conflict zone, who have nothing common with the peacekeeping operation. Such actions by the Georgian side should cause anxiety, rather than approval,” Russian Ambassador Borodavkin said during his speech, which was posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website on March 24.

He expressed discontent that Roy Reeve did not mention the Georgian Parliament’s resolution on peacekeepers, as well as those “provocations” against Russian peacekeepers, which took place in January-February.

Borodavkin also said that the OSCE observers are biased in their regular reports made on the situation in the conflict zone.

“These reports note about Tskhinvali’s non-fulfillment of agreements reached within the framework of the Joint Control Commission [JCC], however nothing is siad about Tbilisi’s illegal actions, or [these actions] are not qualified as a violation,” the Russian Ambassador said.

He expressed hope that the next session of the JCC scheduled in Vladikavkaz for March 27-28 will be fruitful.

“We expect that the sides will manage to agree on a joint program of action, to form mutual confidence building measures and launch their implementation, as well as to discuss the draft report on social-economic rehabilitation of the conflict zone,” Borodavkin added.